The Re­pub­lic­an es­tab­lish­ment is ready to take an­oth­er crack at un­seat­ing Rep. Wal­ter Jones—and it might have found a new can­did­ate to lead the charge.

An­thony Tata, the Re­pub­lic­an sec­ret­ary of trans­port­a­tion in North Car­o­lina and a vet­er­an with nearly three dec­ades of mil­it­ary ex­per­i­ence, is pre­par­ing to run in a primary against the long­time GOP House mem­ber, ac­cord­ing to a half-dozen sources with know­ledge of the planned cam­paign. One source close to Tata, gran­ted an­onym­ity to speak can­didly, said the sec­ret­ary is “ser­i­ously look­ing” at a cam­paign but cau­tioned there was not yet a timetable for his de­cision.

His can­did­acy would be the latest Re­pub­lic­an ef­fort to de­feat Jones, a con­tro­ver­sial fig­ure with­in the GOP who has spoken out force­fully against the Ir­aq war and for­eign aid to Is­rael. His dovish views have ali­en­ated him from House GOP lead­er­ship and the party’s for­eign policy hawks. Dur­ing Jones’s 2014 cam­paign, a pair of Re­pub­lic­an out­side groups, End­ing Spend­ing Fund and Emer­gency Com­mit­tee for Is­rael, com­bined to spend more than $1 mil­lion try­ing to de­feat the in­cum­bent in his primary.

Jones, who rep­res­ents the heav­ily Re­pub­lic­an 3rd Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict along North Car­o­lina’s east­ern shore, barely squeaked by with 51 per­cent of the primary vote against former George W. Bush aide Taylor Griffin. A primary against Tata could be more dif­fi­cult: The GOP base has grown in­creas­ingly hawk­ish dur­ing the rise of IS­IS and Pres­id­ent Obama’s nuc­le­ar-arms ne­go­ti­ations with Ir­an, so much so that polls show for­eign policy now ranks among Re­pub­lic­ans’ top is­sues.

And Tata has a back­ground that could cause trouble for the an­ti­war Jones—who last week voted against the USA Free­dom Act, the House’s com­prom­ise bill to ex­tend cer­tain pro­vi­sions of the Pat­ri­ot Act—in a Re­pub­lic­an primary. A gradu­ate of the U.S. Mil­it­ary Academy, Tata served nearly three dec­ades in the Army, in­clud­ing a tour of duty in Afgh­anistan, be­fore re­tir­ing as a bri­gadier gen­er­al. Even while act­ing as North Car­o­lina’s trans­port­a­tion sec­ret­ary, he has been a reg­u­lar guest on the con­ser­vat­ive talk-ra­dio cir­cuit to dis­cuss for­eign policy.

His al­lies say the sec­ret­ary’s ex­per­i­ence makes him the ideal can­did­ate for 2016.

“He has seen firsthand—in the field—what it takes to de­feat ter­ror­ists like IS­IS and al-Qaida,” said Carter Wrenn, a long­time Re­pub­lic­an strategist in North Car­o­lina who is ad­vising Tata. “Right now, that’s the kind of lead­er­ship we need in Con­gress. I hope he will de­cide to run.”

Re­pub­lic­an an­ti­pathy for Jones goes deep­er than just the for­eign policy es­tab­lish­ment: In 2013, he helped or­gan­ize an ef­fort to oust John Boehner as speak­er. That move came after GOP lead­er­ship re­moved Jones from his post on the Fin­an­cial Ser­vices Com­mit­tee in 2012, os­tens­ibly be­cause he hadn’t raised enough money for the party.

Sources close to Griffin say they “fully ex­pect” him to run again, not­ing that he nearly de­feated Jones the first time and that it of­ten takes two tries to knock off an in­cum­bent. New­comers to the primary, the source ad­ded, will have a dif­fi­cult time in­tro­du­cing them­selves to all corners of a sprawl­ing con­gres­sion­al dis­trict.

But Tata might have one key ad­vant­age: Many Re­pub­lic­ans watch­ing the po­ten­tial primary match­up sug­ges­ted that he, not Griffin, would be the pre­ferred choice of many donors and out­side groups. “Tata is viewed as a more ser­i­ous can­did­ate than Griffin, and he prob­ably will end up with more in­sti­tu­tion­al and es­tab­lish­ment sup­port in the party than Griffin,” said one un­aligned Re­pub­lic­an who has met with Tata about a pos­sible run. “The big ques­tion is does Griffin step down, or does he fight this out?”

The Fed has raised rates another quarter point, to a target rate of 1.25 percent to 1.5 percent. Two members dissented in favor of keeping rates stable. As of this moment, they expect to make three more quarter-point hikes in 2018, and two in 2019. This meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee was Janet Yellen's last as chair.

At a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee today, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said "there's nothing inappropriate about FBI officials on special counsel Robert Mueller's team holding political opinions so long as it doesn't affect their work." Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) said recently disclosed texts among former members of Mueller's team, "which were turned over to the panel Tuesday night by the Justice Department, revealed 'extreme bias.'"